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THE 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY 



OF THE 



Mississippi Valley; 



A LECTURE. 



BY X.. TX. HBAVIS. 



"The Valley of the Mississippi is the chosen seat of population, product and power on this 
continent." — Gen. N. P. Banks, 

" It is a shame that Great Britain should scoop up the commerce of the West India Islands. It is a 
shame that France and Great Britain should takf> possession of South America. These territories open 
their markets for you and for us, who are their nearest and most easily reaching neighbors, and it is 
part of the task of the future for St. Louis to send put her enterprise, to send down her steamers and 
ships and take possession of the commerce of South America." — Henry Ward Beechsr, "on 'Change. ' 



ST. LOUIS, MO.: 
Woodward, Tieknan & Hale, Printers, 212 Locust Street. 

1878. 



THE 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY 



OF THE 



Mississippi Valley; 



A LECTURE. 




-BIT LlftWE-BAYIS 



"The Valley of the Mississippi is the chosen seat of population, product and power on this continent" — 
Gen. N. P. Banks. 

" It is a shame that Great Britain should scoop up the commerce of the West India Islands. It is a shame 
that France and Great Britain should take possession of South America. These territories open their markets 
for you and for us, who are their nearest and most easily reaching neighbors, and it is part of the task of 
the future for St. Louis to send out her enterprise, to send down her steamers and ships and take possession 
of the commerce of South America." — Henry Ward Beecher, "on 'Change." 






ST. LOUIS, MO.: 
Woodward, Tiernan & Hale, Printers, 212 Locust Street. 

187S. 



F"3< 



TO 

JAMES H. BROOKMIEE, 

A MAN" 

WHO, GIFTED WITH RARE MENTAL QUALITIES, HAS BY 
AN INHERENT FORCE OF CHARACTER WOVEN FROM HIS OWN ORGAN- 
IZATION A LIFE OF USEFULNESS AND DISTINCTION ; 

AN INVENTOR, 

WHO WITH MARKED GENIUS HAS GIVEN 

TO LABOR AN INVENTION THAT ABRIDGES TIME AND CONTRIBUTES 

VALUE AND REPUTATION THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY; 

A MERCHANT, 

WHO BY WELL DIRECTED EFFORTS HAS ATTAINED TO THE 
FIRST RANK IN MERCANTILE PURSUITS, AND STANDS WITHOUT A PEEK 
AMONG THE MERCHANTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY; 

• A CITIZEN, 

WHO WITH COMMERCIAL VIEWS AS BROAD 

AS THOSE HEREIN PRESENTED AND AN ENERGY AND A LIBERALITY 

TO PROMOTE THEIR ACHIEVEMENT; 

ARE THESE PAGES RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY 

THE AUTHOR 



NOTICE. 



This lecture was prepared with the full consciousness that the line of discus- 
sion and the object for which it'was made, uot only indicated a new commer- 
cial era for the people of the great basin of the Mississippi, but also for the 
Western Hemisphere. I fully saw at the time of writing, as 1 believed, the 
rapid approach of an entire reorganization of commerce on this continent, or 
in other words, a reorganization, of the lines of trade in the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, and the early necessity for the people, the productive people, of this 
valley seeking new markets southward, in zones and climates which they do 
not possess. 

To my mind the events of succeeding years afford increased evidence of the 
correctness of the doctrine presented in the lecture. 

Several times since its delivery I have solicited river men and commercial 
men to print it in pamphlet form for more permanent use, and send it out over 
the valley to the press and commercial men, for the purpose of cultivating a 
wide-spread conviction in favor of the correctness of the principles laid down, 
and the necessity of promoting trade with equatorial America. In vain did 1 
look for support for its publication and distribution until very recently. I sub- 
mitted it to the reading of Mr. James H. Brookmire, of the well known grocery 
house of Brookmire & Ranken, of this city, who. though young, is one of the 
leading merchants in the great valley of the Mississippi, and whose purchases 
come mostly from the South, and much of which comes from South America. 
He, with an unusual enterprise and sagacity, at once saw the importance of 
giving the doctrines herein contained a wide circulation, consented to appro- 
priate from his own private means a sum sufficient to print and circulate a 
large number of the lecture, to be distributed over this country, the West Indies, 
and South America. 

As a grateful recognition of the enterprise displayed by Mr. Brookmire as 
well as personal regard, I have inscribed the compliment of the publication to 
him, with the ardent wish that we had many more such enterprising men in 
the Valley of the Mississippi. 

In the belief that the lecture will meet the hearty approval of the active and 
thinking men of both continents and their islands, I submit it in the interest of 
a great and growing commercial future. 

L. U. R. 

St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 8, '78. 



EXTRACTS. 



The Mississippi is mighty in his imperial dignity, but more mighty in bis 
lesson of unity and confederation. That matchless tide is the magic Cestus 
which insures the harmony of the sovereign sisters of the Union, and no peev- 
ish eruption of unsisterly jealously can dispart the silvery zone that so firmly 
and graciously hinds their varied climes and products into one common interest. 
The Mississippi is the most persuasive mediator, the most energetic arbiter, 
and the most vigilant defender of the federal compact. — Cora Montgomery. 



THE WEST THE SEAT OF EMPIRE. 

"Jealous of the South! Such would not be my theme, if the demon of sec- 
tionalism had so far possessed itself of me. I should not strive to draw the 
only real danger of a sectional nature which threatens, and to fasten her atten- 
tion upon an imaginary one. Nor by the comparatively small section of the 
Union lying between Mason and Dixon's Line and the Gulf of Mexico, is the 
sceptre of the power in this Union to be held hereafter; but by those vast 
regions of the West, State after State stretching out like star beyond star in the 
blue depths of the firmament, far away to the shores of the Pacific. What is 
the power of the Old Thirteen, North or South, compared with that of the 
mighty West? There is the seat of empire, and there is the hand of imperial 
power. Tell me not of the perils of the slave power and the encroachments of 
the South. Massachusetts and South Carolina will together be as clay in the 
Angers of the potter, when the great West shall stretch forth its arm of power, 
as ere long it will, to command the destiny of the Union." — Cale/> Gushing. 



WHERE REAVIS WORSHIPS. 

Reavis is not a handsome man, and not especially good-natured. He some- 
times gets awfully angry and writes very savagely and very unwisely. But 
Reavis has a big, ugly head on his great, brawny shoulders, full of curious 
conceits and grand ideas, now and then tumbled about in unutterable con- 
fusion in the great, ruddy, glowing cranium of the redoubtable Reavis. lie 
is pugnacious, and obstinate and original. He won't adopt anybody's ideas, 
and is in a towering passion when everybody don't swallow his own. He 
startles people by his industriously collected facts and figures, and can make 
a man's head swim who contemplates the sea of glory over which Reavis guides 
the barque freighted with St. Louis' glory and fortunes. ' Reavis believes in the 
Mississippi. Some people are sun- worshipers, but Reavis is a Western rather 
than an Oriental idolater, prostrating himself in humble adoration before the 
splendid majesty of the "Father of floods." This is a Memphis deity, and, 
since Memphis and Reavis worship in the same temple, and bend reverently 
before the same idol, it would be well for Reavis to preach in this city. The 
hall of the Chamber of Commerce will be crowded on any evening that the 
giant, who bears the destiny of St. Louis in the hollow of his hand, chooses to 
appear. — Memphis Appeal. 



THE 

COMMERCIAL DESTINY 



OF THE 



MISSISSIPPI YALLEY. 



Ladies and Gentlem,en: — 

We are entering upon a new century in the life of our nation. 
The years of our traditionary and colonial history have rolled 
away into the past. A century has passed since our fathers 
issued the Declaration of American Independence. 

During that long stretch of years our people, as a nation, have 
tested many social and political problems, which they were com- 
pelled to confront. In many instances they made mistakes, but 
in the main, both the Republic and the people have profited by 
the experience through which they have passed. 

Now, closing our eyes upon the factional strife and bloody 
conflict from which the nation has recently emerged, and purify- 
ing our hearts after the great sacrifice of humanity made upon 
the altar of the Republic, let us turn from a decade of war, and 
look forward to an era of peace and prosperity, now dawning 
upon our country. Such an era is just before us, and we stand 
face to face with it. As it comes we shall be compelled to con- 
front new and peculiar questions, be called upon to solve new in- 
dustrial, commercial, social and political problems, greater than 
those of the past. And if we do not look forward to their com- 
ing, and study to comprehend their importance to the general 
welfare of the whole people, we shall fail to keep pace with the 
onward progress of the new century. On the other hand, if we meet 



10 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

the new questions of the future in due time, and discuss them 
with earnestness and wisdom, it will be the high prerogative of 
the inhabitants of North America to lead the great progressive 
column of the world's people into new fields of industrial activity 
and thought. I therefore entreat you to look well to the future, 
and if possible, discover what achievements arc hi store for our 
people. I earnestly entreat you to take high ground on the side 
of progress ; and by progress 1 now mean the adaptation of things 
and principles to their best uses. To announce one of the questions 
relating to the national welfare of the people of the grand valley 
of the Mississippi, which demands immediate consideration, and 
to indicate its importance, is the purpose for which i stand before 
you to-day. Nine years ago, when 1 lirst began to devote some spe- 
cial thought to the great questions of the West, I became convinced 
that for our people to achieve the highest ends of industrial and 
commercial life on this continent, the efforts of civilization must 
conform to the essential and distinctive features of nature, as 
marked by the physical formation of the continent. 

An examination of the subject reveals the fact that the. moun- 
tains and their domains have a mission to subserve for the civili- 
zation of North America, essentially their own, and that the 
rivers, with the domain of the interior basin of the continent, have 
a mission to subserve, essentially their own, in the expanding 
growth of human power upon the wide area penetrated by their 
numberless tributaries. For in this country, as in all others, the 
character of the civilization must conform, in a great degree, to 
the character of the distinguishing topographical features which 
mark the surface of the continent. The mountain ranees, the 
boundless prairies, the plateaus and pastoral lands, the rivers and 
the lakes, will each produce types of civilization peculiar to them- 
selves, yet essential to the unification of our continental civilization. 
The two great slopes of North America, the Atlantic and Pacific, 
will produce a civilization in many respects peculiar to the topo- 
graphical character of each. So, too, will the Mississippi Basin 
be distinguished by many features of civilization peculiar to itself. 

Planting ourselves upon these fundamental truths founded in 
nature, we can easily survey the wide domain of North America, 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 11 

and with one sweep of the mind determine what are to be the dis- 
tinguishing pursuits of the inhabitants destined to reside upon 
either of the slopes, and in the great valley. And as easily can 
we define what industrial and commercial policies are best calcu- 
lated to subserve the highest interests of the inhabitants of each 
physical division. Therefore, in view of these facts, I invite your 
attention to a consideration of the commercial destiny of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, as indicated by nature herself, in the physical 
formation of the continent. I have many times indulged the hope 
that when our people recovered from the embarrassments of the 
late civil war, # they would instinctively turn their attention to the 
material development of the country, and thus afford greater op- 
portunity for a full and free discussion of the many questions now 
] (resenting themselves for consideration. 

It may well be laid down as a philosophical axiom, that every- 
thing has a destiny — an end to be achieved, by subserving in a 
t special way the special purposes of existence. This must be re- 
garded true of all things, animate or inanimate, physical and spirit- 
|ual, whether of flowers and vines, of oceans and continents, of 
men and angels. To comprehend the destiny of those things 
with which the material interests of men are concerned, is an im- 
portant function of human knowledge. And in proportion to the 
character and extent of a thing to subserve the necessities and 
interests of individuals and communities, is the importance of the 
destiny to be achieved. 

Thus, when we come to consider the destiny of the Mississippi 
Valley, in any aspect of civilized life, we must, from the very 
nature of the case, regard it as one of vast importance to the fu- 
ture material prosperity of its inhabitants. 

Its superlative size at once warrants such a conclusion, as the 
facts will demonstrate. 

If we look to the river navigation of the continents, we find that 
the greatest river of Asia — the Obi —drains a valley containing 
1,357,000 square miles. The largest river of Africa — the Nile — 
drains a valley containing 520,000 square miles. The greatest 
river of Europe — the Volga— drains a valley containing 400,000 
square miles. The greatest river of South America — the Amazon 



12 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

— drains a valley containing 2,000,000 square miles. The grand- 
est river of North America — the Mississippi — drains a valley 
containing 2,455,350 square miles. 

Thus it will be seen that the Mississippi Valley is the largest 
land formation of the kind on the globe. With its tributaries 
it extends through thirty degrees of longitude and twenty-three 
degrees of latitude, and embraces within its area all the essential 
climates of all the zones of the 'earth, and in conjunction with 
the productive power of this valley furnishes the market basis 
for the mightiest growth of commerce ever known to the world ; 
hence, the commercial destiny of such a country must be great. 

Our present purpose, then, is to consider the commercial des- 
tiny of this grand valley, or in other words, to consider the true 
commercial interests of the people of the Mississippi Valley, and 
how to achieve their best results by a wise regulation of commerce 
and traffic at home and abroad. 

This is a work of no ordinary concern, for the commercial destiny 
of the valley, and as will be shown, involves an entire reorganiza- 
tion of traffic and commerce upon the continent, and the exchange 
of products through new channels and facilities , supported by public 
improvements that are not yet in the ascendancy, nor are they 
even considered by the general mind, which rarely looks beyond 
the present of its own time to ascertain what changes nature, and 
progress, will dictate in the future. 

In this marvelous age of ours, it well becomes the actor in pub- 
lic affairs to look into the future, and discern, if possible, to what 
better condition of things, individuals, communities and states 
are rapidly tending, and apply wisdom to the things of the present, 
and compel them to subserve the better ends of life. If it be true 
that we can look wisely into the future and realize what it is des- 
tined to bring forth, who shall say that that knowledge may not 
be wisely applied to the uses of the present? 

Heretofore the experience of our people has been such as to 
convince the most incredulous that the goal of their ambition and 
wealth was to be reached somewhere in the path of empire as it 
lies across the continent East and West. And such has been the 
rapid western march of the American pioneer, and such the 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 13 

succeeding progress of the railway to the Pacific Ocean, that men 
have seemed for a time to forget that they must conform to nature, 
rather than with the implements of art become masters of nature. 
But we have only to question this mental blindness to expose its 
absurdity. 

Man's mightiest achievements in every field of activity and 
thought have been more easily and truly won when his etforts were 
directed conjointly with nature herself, or in other words, when he 
more nearly co-operated with nature. 

The water is more easily utilized in the channel of the river ; 
the railway is better and easier built where nature has more nearly 
prepared the track. 

It is, therefore, essential that we ascertain, as a necessary basis 
for the argument, whether it is possible for man, in the career of 
his progress, to transcend, in any important degree, the well- 
ordered arrangements of nature, for the direction of his industrial 
and commercial pursuits, and to point out the economic use of the 
commercial means destined to give character and activity to the 
future great interests of the people of the Mississippi Valley. 

That man cannot in any great degree transcend the order of 
nature, and establish dominion, and go forward in the highway 
of progress, contrary to the unchangeable laws of gravitation and 
gain, must become evident to every one who will give the subject 
a moment's thought. Assuming that this general proposition is 
true, let us make the application. 

Since the beginning of the migration of the human race upon 
the earth, man has been governed by two essential movements. 
The first has ever been westward along the zodiac of empire. 
Along the path of the first movement has grown up the control- 
ling civilization of the human race. Along it the camel and the 
caravan traveled in Oriental lands. Along the seas adjacent to 
the land, the rude form of the ship sailed in ancient and modern 
times. Now the camel, the caravan and the ruder form of the 
ship are superseded by the railway and the ocean steamer ; and 
yet the railway and the steamships do not transcend the order of 
nature, and change the natural course and character of human 
enterprise. The railway simply does the labor of the camel in 



14 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

another form, and does not change any of the principles of human 
enterprise and action. The ship does upon the ocean what the 
railway does upon the land ; hence the same general laws of human 
interest and ambition govern mankind to-day that did four 
thousand years ago, and must continue to govern man's commer- 
cial interest. 

The second essential movement of man upon the earth has ever 
been at right angles with the zodiac of empire, to the North and 
the South. From this second movement has been produced the 
greater portion of all the commerce and maritime wealth of the 
world. This movement has been the essential producer and ex- 
changer of the products of man in all ages, and stimulated ambi- 
tious rulers to seek the rich trade of the tropics, through new 
channels, with which to build up their own empires. 

If we go to the countries of Africa, of Asia, and of Europe, and 
trace the commercial movements of their peoples since the begin- 
ning of time, we will find in all their efforts but little variation 
from this general law which nature has prescribed, and to which 
all people have unerringly conformed. The operation of this law 
governing the commercial interests of mankind, is not only traced 
in the right-angular divergence of the race from the zodiac of 
empire, but is also discoverable in the natural tendency of man, 
in all the controlling commercial pursuits, to follow the flow of 
the waters toward the tropics, on all the continents. In this 
movement of man is to be found the most important operation of 
the law of commercial adventure upon the globe. 

And this same unchangeable law— this law of human action 
conforming to the requirements of nature — must control the 
people of this great valley, and compel them to a destiny over- 
ruled by nature herself. 

And as in all ages of the world, man upon the continents has 
followed the flow of those waters running to the tropical oceans, 
in search of markets for his own produce, and wealth for his 
aggrandizement, so will the people of this valley, in obedience to 
nature's provision, follow the flow of waters from the lakes to 
the gulf, and from thence will their ships go down to the sea, 
bearing their produce to the markets of the world, and in return 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 15 

gather up the rich treasures of other lauds and bear them home. 
It is true, as already stated, that in modern times a new agency has 
been introduced on the continents to facilitate commerce. I re- 
fer to the railway. But when we come to consider the economic use 
of the commercial means destined to give character and activity 
to the industrial interests of the people of this valley, it at once 
becomes evident that by the use of the railway, man can in no 
degree transcend the provisions of nature. Besides, the railways 
must yield to the superior and overruling influence of nature, and 
in their greater use, .yield alike with man, and follow the flow ot 
the waters to the tropical seas. It is therefore assumed as an 
incontrovertible fact — an unavoidable goal to which our people 
are rapidly hastening — that the commercial destiny of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley must be achieved in harmony with nature ; that 
the surplus products of the valley, designed for foreign trade, 
must follow the flow of the waters from Hudson's Bay to the 
Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean of the New World. The 
people of this vast domain, from the water-sheds of the Alle- 
ghanies to the water-sheds of the Sierra Nevadas, must all 
yield to this universal law of nature and interest, and follow the 
flow of the waters of the innumerable rivers to the gulf stream. 
This must be the commercial destiny of the millions of people 
who now and henceforth inhabit the interior plain of the continent, 
and neither ambition nor conflicting interests can thwart them 
from an obedience to the plain and simple dictates of Nature. 
Nor will this people be deflected from their destiny, and com- 
pelled or inclined to pass over either range of mountains, the Alle- 
ghanies or Sierra Nevadas, to seek the markets of the world from 
the shores of the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. Cheaper freights on 
the one hand will compel the products of the valley to the gulf, 
and a rigorous climate, on the other hand, will contribute to the 
same end. 

T have stated that the surplus products of the Mississippi Valley 
destined for foreign markets, must follow the flow of the waters 
of the Mississippi and its tributaries, to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
from thence to the markets of the world. I base this statement 
upon three fundamental propositions. 



l(i COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI A r ALLEY. 

I. That transportation by the rivers of the valley, to the gulf, 
will forever remain a necessity to which the present and future 
millions of inhabitants of the central plain of the continent must 
resort for the purpose of conveying their surplus products to the 
markets of the world. 

II. That the products of the farms and factories of every part 
of the great valley can be transported cheaper by the rivers to 
the gulf, and thence to foreign markets, than can possibly be done 
to the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards, and from their ports to the 
markets of the world. 

III. The future place of traffic for the people of the Mississippi 
Valley must be with the West India Islands, Central and South 
America. 

These three propositions, demonstrated by facts that cannot be 
refuted, will reveal to the world the commercial destiny of the 
Mississippi Valley, as indicated b}^ its topographical character, 
and call the attention of the people of North America who reside 
upon its great rivers to an interest and a duty that must hence- 
forth command their united support. 

That transportation by the rivers of the Valley to the gulf will 
become a necessity to the millions of people who now live and 
henceforth will reside in the central and upper portions of the 
Mississippi basin, there can be no manner of doubt, and if there 
was but one compelling cause for such a necessity, that cause 
alone would operate as an irrevocable decree in controlling the 
commerce of this great valley. The necessity to which I refer, and 
which is the first thought to direct the attention of the people of the 
Valley to the gulf as an outlet to the markets of the world, conies 
from the fact that it will be utterly impossible for the railroads of the 
country to take the produce of the farms and factories and foundries 
to market. Perhaps this statement may seem strange to some ; 
nevertheless it is true, and requires but a single reflection to real- 
ize its truth. It is impossible to build within the bounds of interest 
and economy a sufficient number of railroads to take away to the 
gulf the products destined to accumulate from year to year on 
the upper rivers. There is neither money enough in the country 
to build the roads, nor would the investment be profitable if the 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 17 

money could be obtained, for no capitalist can afford to invest 
their means to build roads that can only be supplied with business 
from three to six months during the twelve ; hence, to limit the 
railways to such a number as to insure them profits on the cost 
of construction and maintenance, by the business they can do, will 
leave the people of the Valley of the Mississippi constantly bur- 
dened with their surplus products, unable to find a market save 
by the water lines to the gulf. 

The present railroads of the country have cost more than 
$4,000,000,000. They cannot to-day, with the rivers, do the 
freighting business of the country as prompt as the best interests 
of the people demand. In less than a generation the population 
of the Mississippi Valley will be more than 100,000,000, and its 
commerce more than tripled, and in no event will there be suffi- 
cient railway capacity to take to the oceans and the gulf the 
products of the people. 

Turning to the rivers we find ample facility. They penetrate 
with navigable waters every part of the grand valley, and the one 
mighty river of the continent has a freighting capacity greater 
than all the railroads of the world ! And while speed will neces- 
sarily draw the travel and light freights to the railroads, cheap 
rates will draw the heavy freights to the rivers, and thus will the 
railroads and the rivers each subserve their own best purposes in 
the industrial and commercial affairs of the country. 

Passing to our second proposition, that the surplus products of 
the Mississippi Valley, designed for the markets of the world, 
can be transported cheaper by the water lines to the gulf than by 
any other way, is a fact as easily demonstrated as the simplest 
mathematical problem. 

Experience has substantially settled the rates of freights by the 
various modes of transportation to be as follows : The transpor- 
tation of one ton of freight costs by ocean, 1 1-4 mills per mile ; 
by lake, 2 1-2 mills per mile ; by river, 3 mills per mile ; by 
canal, 10 mills per mile ; by railway, 30 mills per mile. 

Taking the above rates as a basis for the exchange of products 
between the markets of the different channels of communication, 
no difficulty lies in the way of establishing the truth of our 



18 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

second proposition, which also carries with it a still greater in- 
ducement for the people of the valley to look toward the gulf for 
an outlet to foreign ports. Let us look at the facts. The distance 
from St. Paul to New York is 1,350 miles; at the foregoing 
rates it will cost a little more than 40 cents, exclusive of ele- 
vatorage, to ship one bushel of wheat from St. Paul to New York, 
by railroad ; from New York to Liverpool, a distance of 3,200 
miles, it will cost 12 1-4 cents to carry one bushel of wheat; 
therefore from St. Paul by rail to New York, and from thence 
to Liverpool, it will cost 52 cents to export one bushel of wheat. 
From St. Paul to New Orleans, a distance of 1,993 miles, by 
river, it will cost a trifle more than 16 cents to ship one bushel of 
wheat, and from New Orleans to Liverpool, a distance of 4,950 
miles, it will cost 15 cents to ship the same measure of wheat ; in 
other words, it will cost 31 cents to export one bushel of wheat 
from St. Paul b}' the river and gulf route to Liverpool, thus 
making a difference of 21 cents on each bushel exported by the 
river and gulf route. 

The same rate of difference in the cost of shipping wheat and 
other products of the valley, commands alike the consideration of 
the people in eveiy locality throughout its wide domain. But the 
discussion does not stop here ; it takes a wider and deeper range. 
If it is true that. art and capital can improve railwa} r s, it is also true 
that science and capital can improve rivers, and this brings us to 
a great question of continental and national concern — the im- 
provement of the Mississippi and its tributaries. There is no 
commercial and national question before the American people to- 
day half so important as that of improving the great rivers of the 
valley, so as to afford free and ample navigation for first class 
steamers from the Gulf of Mexico to Cincinnati, Chicago, St. 
Paul, and Omaha. In these railroad times, we occasionally hear 
men speak of the improvement of the rivers and their navigation 
as an old fogy notion. But men who talk thus can, with equal 
reason, call it old fogy to plow and plant corn— a thing that was 
done in Egypt many thousand years ago. The one has ever 
been a necessity, the other an interest to promote the welfare of 
man. Referring, however, to the Mississippi River, its improve- 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 19 

ment will be both a necessity and an interest to the future 
prosperity of our people ; for if it be true that on account of 
cheaper freights it is to the interest *of the people of the valley to 
send their surplus products by the water lines to the gulf, then 
they will be sent that way. And if it is to their still greater in- 
terest to improve the rivers, then the rivers will be improved. 
We have seen, according to the first proposition laid down, that 
the people of the valley will be compelled to continue the use of 
the rivers, by which to export the vast supplies of constantly ac- 
cumulating products ; for it will be utterly impossible, within the 
range of economy and profit, to provide sufficient railway facil- 
ities to carry to the gulf and the oceans the freights destined 
for foreign markets ; therefore the improvement of the rivers 
comes as another necessity, coupled with the first proposition, 
and in vindication of the second. 

If it be true that our people who reside in the grain, pork, and 
beef growing regions of the valley, must go to the rivers and 
follow the flow of the waters to the gulf with their products, and 
that by so doing, go to market at a less cost than b}^ any other 
route, then is it not true that by a wise and sufficient improve- 
ment of the rivers, so* as to utilize the waters as they flow to the 
seas, freights can be greatly reduced below their present rates? 
Most assuredly so. Then shall we not all join hands and efforts 
to secure the improvement of the rivers according to the dictates 
of science and the demands of commerce? 

This is the central idea of the subject under discussion. It is 
the great commercial question for the people of the Mississippi 
Valley to solve. To improve the rivers of the interior basin of 
the continent, is a subject almost as old as that of improving the 
American harbors of the Atlantic ocean. In fact, it was the fear 
of Washington when young, that if the seaboard States did not 
make good roads from the head waters of the Mohawk and adja- 
cent country, to afford easy communication to the seaboard, the 
people of the Western States would turn their attention down 
the Mississippi, to the gulf. 

In 1783 Washington visited the Mohawk, and followed that 
river up to the summit which divides the waters flowing into Lake 



20 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

Ontario from those flowing into the Hudson. The object of his- 
visit was to examine into the condition and wants of the people. 
On his return he reported to the Governor of Virginia, and urged 
the necessity of making- good roads, for the purpose of attracting 
the attention of the people of the Western States eastward. He 
said they had been looking down the Mississippi, and the touch 
of a feather would turn them either way. 

Now more than 20,000,000 people are not only looking, but 
o-omg down the Mississippi to the gulf, which they can reach more 
easily than the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. Their market and 
their commercial destiny is down the river. For this people to 
achieve their destiny in the highest degree, the Mississippi and 
its tributaries must be improved. There is not a navigable river 
in the Valley of the Mississippi that does not afford sufficient 
water for all the demands of commerce almost the entire year, if 
the water is utilized by its proper confinement to the channels 
of the respective streams. But the great question is the im- 
provement of the Mississippi, into which all the others flow. 
That there is sufficient water in the Mississippi during all seasons 
of the year to render its navigation serviceable in the highest 
degree, when properly improved, there is no manner of doubt. 
Already it is the mightiest inland commercial thoroughfare in the 
world. At a less expense than would be required for any other 
public improvement of equal magnitude and importance, it can 
be made more than double its present value to the commerce, 
civilization and government of North America. 

The character and extent of the improvements necessary to be 
made in the interests of a free and unrestricted commerce from 
St. Paul to the Gulf of Mexico, I leave for river men and engi- 
neering science to determine. It is my purpose only to indicate 
the commercial destiny of the people of the valley, to urge the 
importance of improving the river, and join hands with the people 
and demand of Congress to make the improvements. The com- 
mercial interest of the Mississippi Valley demands free and un- 
restricted navigation from St. Paul to the Gulf of Mexico. It 
demands that every wreck and snag that endangers the vessels 
that do the bidding of commerce be taken from the channel of 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 21 

the river. It demands that the water be so utilized between St. 
Paul and the Gulf as to afford a sufficient depth in the channel 
during the entire year, for the different vessels engaged in differ- 
ent trades. 

For myself, I am in favor of a uniform depth of twelve feet of 
water between St. Louis and New Orleans. This depth will admit 
sea-going vessels of from 1,300 to 1,400 tons — the same size ves- 
sels that England uses for carrying her mails to the West Indies, 
Aspinwall and Australia. 

I am aware that many river men regard this as visionary and 
impracticable, and tell us that from six to eight feet of water is 
sufficient. I shall not be content with that depth, but insist that 
we demand twelve feet of water between St. Louis and New Or- 
leans. River freights are almost three times higher than ocean 
freights, and if it is profitable for vessels to go upon the oceans, 
it is also equally profitable for them to run on inland waters, 
where the facilities are alike advantageous. But there is another 
reason why I am in favor of establishing a uniform depth of twelve 
feet between St. Louis and New Orleans. I look beyond to-day 
and see, in less than a century hence, 400,000,000 enterprising 
and intelligent American citizens residing in this great Valley of 
the Mississippi ; I see this generation pass away ; I sec another 
come, inspired with new hopes and new ideas, with fresh systems 
of navigation and new modes of transacting business ; I see a 
vast system of inter-oceanic navigation and commerce carried on 
in this country — ships arriving by the St. Lawrence and going 
out by the Mississippi; I see St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, 
Louisville and other great cities of the rivers made ports of entry ; 
I see ships come from every part of the habitable globe to the 
great city of the world, and take of the choice products of the 
400,000,000 people and go down to the sea laden for the markets 
of other lands; I see mighty cities, populous and powerful, 
spreading all over this great valley, centers of commerce and 
human activity ; I see North America controlling the civilized 
world; and when I see all these things pass before my mind, I 
am admonished to urge such an improvement of the Mississippi 
river as will give an annual dep.li of twelve feet. 



22 COMMERCIAL, DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

Besides, we shall not go far in the future before ships will be built 
upon the Mississippi that will traverse alike the rivers, the lakes, 
and the ocean with equal facility. They will be owned and run by 
capitalists and companies organized in the great cities on the rivers 
and lakes, like unto those of the seaboard cities. Ship- building 
will yet be an important branch of productive industry for river 
cities. 

As to the cost of improving the Mississippi so as to have an 
annual depth of twelve feet from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico, 
I have consulted with an engineer in whose judgment I have con- 
lidence ; he estimates the expense at from $50,000,000 to $60,000,- 
000, if the money can be honestly expended, but $100,000,000 if 
the steal is big. Some of you may regard this amount very large, 
but it is small in comparison with the magnitude and importance 
of the work. No other improvement, ancient or modern, relating 
to the special interest of commerce, has ever commanded the atten- 
tion of man equal in importance to that of the Mississippi, so as 
to control its waters, and aiford ample and free navigation from 
St. Paul to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 1,957 miles. Be 
it ever so much, what matters the cost if it falls infinitely below 
the profits to accrue, and if the work is cheaper than any other 
public improvement in the world ? There is at least $250,000,000 
invested in railroads in the Mississippi Valley, and the amount 
will be swelled to $5,000,000,000, and yet a thousand railroads 
are not equal to the Mississippi river. I would not undervalue 
the importance of railroads to commerce and civilization, but at 
best, as commercial thoroughfares, they can only be feeders to the 
rivers. They can gather the products of the land and take them 
to the rivers, the lakes, and the oceans, to be transported to dis- 
tant markets, but never can they be made to subserve the uses of 
the rivers, the lakes, and the oceans. Each have a mission, a 
work to do in the grander growth of civilization upon the conti- 
nent. There is room for all, there is use for all ; and in the rapid 
strides for commercial achievements which our people are making, 
we must not improve the one at the expense of the other. Touch- 
ing the subject of an imaginary contest between the rivers and the 
railways for the transportation of the products of the country, I 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 2n 

was surprised at reading the testimony of some of the citizens of 
St. Louis before the senatorial committee, that met at that city 
in November, 1873. Among other things stated by one of the 
men interrogated, is the following absurd declaration : "We all 
know," said the witness, "it to be the fact, that railroads have 
absorbed the enterprise and the capital of the country." I give 
the gentleman's own language, and, notwithstanding he says "we 
all know it," I for one don't know it at all. But I do know the 
very reverse to be true. 

Instead of absorbing the enterprise of the country, instead of 
absorbing the capital of the country, railroads have made this 
gigantic land strong in material power and progress. They have 
developed incalculable wealth, and made the people of the nation 
vigorous and enterprising. 

The arts have given nothing to the world equal to the railway, 
and be you Granger or demagogue, fool or fanatic, when you 
strike at the railway system of this country, in the name of a 
starved economy, 3^011 strike at the progress and commercial ad- 
vancement of the world. Go, if you will, and check the blind 
Samson, you will die in the ruins of poverty made by your own 
hands. 

But, while I would advocate railways, I do not mean to say that 
the men who control them, if misguided by bad motives, will not 
aggress on the rights of the people, as well as legislative assemblies 
and any other forms of organized power — I know they will do so. 
But the remedy against any public wrong is not to be found in 
mobs , strikes and class organizations . Such movements are always 
founded upon ignorance and selfishness, and prosecuted without 
regard to the rights of otners. 

There need be no war between the rivers and railways. Small- 
minded and mercenary men may talk of fogyism about the one, 
and the despotism of corporations of the other, but interest and 
wisdom will prescribe to each, in due time, its special and recip- 
rocal use. 

I am therefore in favor of the General Government appropria- 
ting from the national treasury a sufficient amount of money, 
$100,000,000 if need be, to put the Mississippi river and its 



24 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

navigable tributaries in first-class commercial order, and open the 
way to the gulf, free to the commerce of the great valley. Sup- 
pose it does cost $50,000,000 or $100,000,000? The people 
will be the gainers in less than five years after the work is done. 
Insurance will be reduced by removing the dangers to navigation ; 
freights will be reduced, and corn will be shipped from St. Paul 
to the gulf at eight cents per bushel. These advantages alone 
would repay the cost of the improvements. What is $50,000,000 
or $100,000,000 to such a vast work, and by so great a nation? 
Have not the nations of Europe spent millions of dollars to im- 
prove the Elbe, the Oder, the Rhine, the Danube and the Seine? 
And yet, have we not a greater nation, our people a mightier 
mission to fulfill, than was ever born beyond the Atlantic? Still 
timid men and politicians, empowered with the function of the 
statesman and legislators, hesitate to go forward in the develop- 
ment of the country, by making such improvements as the people 
and the nation demand for the best interest of each. 

Is it unreasonable for the General Government to improve the 
great river system of the grand Valley of the Mississippi? Is 
not such a work essentially national ? Most certainly it is ! Then 
I would have the General Government organize a corps of the 
best engineers in the country— yes, in the world if need be. I 
would have them go up and down the navigable rivers of the 
valley, and make a thorough examination of every harbor, and 
the character of every stream, as well as the lands upon their 
shores. I would have them consult the merchants and river men, 
from St. Paul, Chicago, Pittsburg and Omaha to the gulf, and 
ascertain, as far as possible, what the present and future com- 
merce of the valley, in conjunction with railways, demands. I 
would then have estimates made of the cost of the necessary 
improvements. And by the improvements necessary to be made, 
I do not mean any politician's job of snag-boat swindle, and 
sand-bar and rapids steals ; but I mean the inauguration of a 
great system of improvement, in character and importance com- 
mensurate with the nation itself. A system of river improvements 
that will last for ages ; which will be the work of statesmanship 
and science ; an improvement that will unite the oceans, the 



COMMERCIAL DESTIMT OF THE MISSISSIPPI VAELEY. 25 

rivers, the lakes and the canals of North America, and enable 
the great ship of the sea to go through the land, like an amphib- 
ious monster, where commerce commands. 

The character of the improvements agreed upon, and the cost 
ascertained, I would have Congress issue River Improvement 
bonds sufficient for the expense — $100,000,000 if need be. I 
would have the bonds run fifty years. At the end of that time, 
200,000,000 people will reside in the valley, ready and willing to 
pay the bonds, and thank God for the foresight and wisdom ot 
the Congress that made the improvements. It would not be' 
necessary to place all the bonds on the market at the same time, 
but only such installments as would be required from time to 
time to supply money for the prosecution of the work, each 
installment to run fifty years from time of sale. In the mean- 
time, the burden of taxation, after the improvements are made, 
will fall inmiitely below the profits that will accrue to the people 
by cheaper transportation. 

But there is still another way by which the cost of improvement 
would come home to the people. The improvement of the Missis- 
sippi would necessarily drain and bring into use the alluvial lands 
lying along its shores and adjacent to it. The restoration -of those 
lands alone would bring into existence more than double the cost 
of the entire improvement, though it be $100,000,000. I quote 
from the report of Humphreys and Abbot, on the survey of the 
Mississippi, page 421, as follows : 

"It may be well to exhibit, in this connection, with this approx- 
imate estimate of the cost of leveeing the alluvial regions, the 
extent and probable value of lands, which, thus protected from 
overflow, will be rendered available for cultivation. The area of 
those lands from Cape Girardeau to Red river is 19,450 square 
miles. It may be assumed that one-half of this area will be 
rendered cultivable, and as its value per acre may be set down 
at twenty-live dollars, the total will amount to $160,000,000. 
The area of the alluvial land under cultivation below the mouth 
of Red river is not less than 1,000,000 acres, which at $100 per 
acre, (by no means an extravagant estimate), gives $100,000,000 
for the value of the plantations in that section, making a total 



26 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

value of $260,000,000 for the land that will be rendered perpet- 
ually cultivable by the expenditure of $17,000,000." 

This calculation, you will bear in mind, is founded upon an 
advance in the price of only 7,000,000 acres of alluvial land, 
lying upon the lower Mississippi below Cairo and forms but a 
small portion of the alluvial lands that would be rendered valu- 
able by the improvement of the rivers and the consequent confine- 
ment of their waters within their banks. But were there not a 
single acre to be reclaimed by the improvement, its necessity 
would still be paramount. And we all agree that the work shall 
be done by the General Government. And yet the impression 
pervades the public mind that the railroads of the country have 
a sufficient controlling power over Congress and the people, to 
prevent any improvement of the rivers, as long as their use is 
reckoned to be hostile to the railway interests. In addition to 
this impression, it is held, with no small amount of evidence for 
its foundation, that the capital and interest, on the Atlantic 
seaboard of our country, are hostile to the growth and indepen- 
dence of the West, and having control of the administration and 
legislation of the government, sharply contest all the national 
legislation designed to promote Western interests. And especially 
has it ever been the practice of the capitalists and statesmen of 
the Eastern cities and seaboard States, to hold the West in check, 
and make her a dependency upon Eastern capital and Eastern 
interests. Appropriations from the national treasury, designed 
for Western improvements, have always been grudgingly and 
diminutively made. But such a narrow policy cannot endure 
forever. 

" For time at last sets all things even.'" 

To-day the West is the vital portion of the national life, and I 
mean by the West the entire Mississippi Valley, from the lakes to 
the gulf. She supplies the materials for the fabrics of the country. 
From the West come most of the resources out of which the 
taxes to support the government are drawn. To the West 
belongs most of the population of the country, and to the West 
belongs a majority of the senators and representatives in the 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 27 

Congress of the United States. And if a majority of them were 
statesmen instead of politicians, the West would not complain 
much longer about the unfair treatment of the East. Legislation 
and money would be given in abundance at the dictates of wisdom 
and statemanship, of commerce and civilization, if the West was 
rightly represented in the Congress of the United States. The 
time is at hand when we must look in another direction for the 
cause of our incompetent representatives, our incapacitated law- 
makers ; we must look to the people ; to tl^em belong the respon- 
sibility, in a great measure, of choosing demagogues and fools to 
make the laws for the government and welfare of their country. 
We must have a new discussion of the great questions of our 
government and civilization. The people must be made to feel 
more than now the responsibility resting upon them, of choosing 
the law-makers of the country. The school-house, the college, 
the rostrum, the pulpit and the press must be made to ring with 
eloquence and reason, that will revolutionize the vulgar conception 
of the people, and revivify them with knowledge and sense of 
responsibility, one to another, and each to the whole. 

But I have said that to the West already belongs a majority of 
the senators and representatives in Congress, and this being true, 
there must not be any delay about the legislation essential to 
Western interests. 

In view of these facts, if the West fails in the future to get her 
share of national legislation, as well as appropriations, the fault 
will be in the people, who send incompetent men to Congress. 

Having thus briefly considered a work of incalculable value to 
the commercial interests of the people of the Mississippi Valley, 
I would ask your attention to a higher consideration of the work, 
and the importance it is destined to subserve for the government 
of the people of North America. 

1 hold that the Mississippi and its tributaries are the greatest 
bonds of national union known to the people of the country. 

Let us consider this statement for one moment. Here we have 
a river extending through thirty degrees of longitude and twenty- 
three degrees of latitude, and draining an area of 2,455,000 square 
miles — an area larger than all Europe, exclusive of Russia, Nor- 



28 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

way and Sweden. It gathers its floods from the country between 
the upper lakes and the Rocky mountains. They are gathered 
from semi-arctic regions, and they flow through all the climates, a 
distance of 3,000 miles, there to be emptied into the Gulf Stream 
of a tropical sea, to be lost in the "dark and deep blue ocean." 

This great river forms the boundary line of eleven populous 
and powerful States and two Territories. Upon its main stream 
and tributaries lie eighteen States and lour Territories, large 
enough in themselves to form one of the mightiest nations on the 
face of the globe. It is a bond of common interest and political 
union, alike to the whole as it is to the parts. No one State or 
climate can appropriate it, to the exclusion of the others. It be- 
longs alike to all, and is a mightier bond of national unity than 
the constitution itself. In the late civil strife, when the authority 
of the constitution was of no avail in a land of discordant and 
belligerent States, this mighty river, which binds the continent 
by the authority of Jehovah, mocked alike at friend and foe, and 
defied the passions of men, and supremely vindicated the unity 
of the States of the Republic as one and indivisible. As long as 
the waters run in the Mississippi from the north to the south, the 
country through which it runs will know but one government and 
one people, and be the unfailing servant of all. "Its annual over- 
flow engulfs more wealth than the revenue of half of the petty 
kingdoms of the earth ! ' ' What a wonderful river ! It wears the 
bright honors of unnumbered centuries. Its liquid volume moves 
undisturbed to the sea as at the dawn of creation. It halts not in 
its course at the tread of empire. On its shores are the unwritten 
pages of more history than belongs to all the existing kingdoms 
of the world. 

The traditionary empire of Hiawatha, extending over the val- 
ley of this grand river, is but the prophecy of that still mightier 
empire of the mound-builders, whose traces yet remain in the re- 
lentless hand of Time, and whose origin and decline prefigured 
in the then far-off future, the world's mightiest nation. This 
great river of the continent, though a new-comer to civilized 
man, is older than human things, is older than organic life. It 
was the parent and protector of millions of organic forms long 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 29 

before the pyramids were built, and before the southern cross 
disappeared from the horizon of the Baltic. It floats, annually, 
upon its tributaries and main stream, more than $200,000,000 of 
commerce, and in less than a century hence it will bear upon its 
bosom to the sea the commerce of 400,000,000 Saxon Americans. 

What a wonderful river ! No man can compute its importance 
to the North American people. What the Nile is to Egypt, 
what the great river Euphrates was to ancient Assyria, what the 
Ganges is to India, what the Yangtese is to China, what the 
Danube is to Europe, what the Amazon is to Brazil — all this, and 
even more than this, the Mississippi is to the North American 
continent. In an earlier period men would have worshipped the 
Mississippi ; in this age we can do better — we can improve it. 
Then let us improve it ; let us make a great ship canal, or ship 
river, if you please, from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico, and thus 
make it worthy the respect and care of the active, earnest, and 
patriotic people of the American Union. 

But there is still another sense in which this great river is a 
wonderful agent of civilization. It forms continued inland navi- 
gation with that of ocean navigation, which has proven in all ages 
to be a great civilizer of mankind. In every land where ocean 
navigation has been connected and extended into the interior, civ- 
ilization has been promoted by the inter-communication of the 
people of one country with that of another. In this way, the 
Mississippi river is destined to subserve, in the future, a higher 
purpose than it has in the past, notwithstanding the great advan- 
tages it afforded to the earlier pioneers and explorers of the 
country. 

There remains the third and last proposition of the subject to 
be considered. The future place of traffic for the people of the 
Mississippi Valley will be with South America and the tropical 
lands of the Western hemisphere. 

The products of the earth and industry which create commerce 
are confined to special zones and climates, and are rendered more 
valuable as officiating ministers to human happiness when ex- 
changed between people occupying regions of different tempera- 
ture. This truth is demonstrated by the entire experience of the 



30 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

human race. All the rich commerce of the world, since Joseph 
went down into Egypt, has grown out of an exchange of the pro- 
ducts of the temperate for those of the tropical zones ; and time 
has demonstrated to the people of every nation the necessity of 
sooner or later abandoning the pioneer, or East and West, path 
of human activity, and moving commerce upon longitudinal, in- 
stead of latitudinal lines, to secure the greatest rewards of 
industry. The same lessons of trade that experience has taught 
the people of other nations, the people of this great Mississippi 
basin must learn. A new commercial era, a new commercial des- 
tiny, now dawns upon the Western hemisphere. The tales of 
Marco Polo, the hopes of Columbus, and the Spaniard's dream of 
the El Dorado, will soon find fruition in the new land of Cathay. 

" The lost Atlantides, that lay 

To ancient thought, beyond the waves away." 

The opening of a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico by Captain 
Eads, is the opening of a new commercial era of the Western 
hemisphere ; a new commercial destiny that will invite all the 
people of the globe into its simple secrets, and place in the hands 
of Saxon America the control of the commerce of the world. 
Through the gateway to the gulf the future opens to the people 
of the Valley of the Mississippi, and they are now compelled to 
begin to learn the lesson before them, and turn away from old 
Europe, and seek new markets, if need be, of their own creation, 
in the tropical lands of the Western hemisphere. 

There lies beyond the rule of our constitution, and south of us, 
an immense area of navigable waters, a gulf and a sea, destined to 
be the theater of the greatest marine commerce on the globe. It is 
studded with islands, rich in the wealth of nature, and struggling 
to take part in the affairs of the world. Still beyond and around 
lies a vast continent, pregnant with all that is great and grand, 
and valuable in nature. Those islands and waters and adjacent 
continent are our natural allies, and with us destined to be the 
world's conservators. For with us, under the new civilization, 
Europe and Asia are separated but still struggling under the old 
civilization, our people are diverted from their final goal to those 
distant continents in pursuit of commerce and wealth. We know 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 31 

but little of those lands and waters of our own hemisphere that 
lie under and beyond the tropics ; our people should know more. 
They occupy a longitudinal position in the geography of the hem- 
isphere, in their relation with the people of the valley, and will 
inevitably command the trade of the valley, in obedience to an 
all-controlling commercial law, that stimulated Alexander the 
Great to enrich his empire with the products of southern climes. 
That law moved from the Persian Gulf with the human tide of 
the world, and successively built up commercial centres on the 
Mediterranean, and from thence moved to the Netherlands, and 
now rules the commerce of England. This all-powerful commer- 
cial law is now being enacted upon the Western hemisphere, and 
in obedience to its sovereign power, and in the language of Mr. 
Beecher : 

"The States of North America are to be the commercial centre 
of the globe. This destiny seems so inevitable that one hardly 
requires more than inspection of the map to perceive it. Both 
sides of the globe — the two hemispheres — are ours by our posi- 
tion ; for we are the land of two oceans. From our hither shore 
we hail the European and African continents ; from our thither 
shore we greet the Oceanica and Asiatic continents. And all 
between the oceans is our own ; to be tilled with our own people, 
under common institutions, speaking our language. 

"The interior structure of this continent peculiarly fits it to be 
the mart of the globe. Its rivers open the interior from almost 
every part, and give natural outlets ; its lakes are embosomed 
oceans, giving to the Northern frontier a third shore and an inland 
commerce scarcely less than the Atlantic or Pacific shore. 

"Such artificial ways as are needed, especially the great thor- 
oughfares from ocean to ocean — the inland highway from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific — are within our own bounds. We have 
no Prussia on our border, no Russia beyond her. Our vast inte- 
rior is not grouped into national estates, blocking each other up 
and wasting each other's means by monstrous armies of watch 
or attack. 

"We can ask of commerce what she needs, and whether it is 
Northward or Southward, Eastward or Westward, her path lies 
among our own people. 

"Shortly the carrying trade of the globe must be in our hands ! 
Upon our shores are the gates through which must pour the 
world's merchandise." 



32 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

Such a commercial destiny as lies before the great people ot 
the Mississippi basin, and their rapid increase to 100,000,000, 
and from thence to 600,000,000 population before the close of 
the twentieth century, commands the immediate action of those 
now living to adjust themselves to the new trade and the new 
commerce now growing up between the two continents of the 
Western hemisphere. Linked together by nature as these conti- 
nents are, their people must be united by commercial relations, 
reciprocal in their character, and profitable in their results. 
Seeing these things to be true, we must conclude that the future 
growth in commerce and art of the people of the continents of the 
Western hemisphere, will depend upon the co-operative relations 
of the one with the other. And if we are wanting in examples 
to stimulate such high commercial adventure, we have only to 
refer back to an age when commerce began its final struggle with 
the military under the feudal power of old Europe and Western 
Asia. Five different routes successively opened and occupied 
from the Persian Gulf to the commercial marts of the Mediterra- 
nean were traveled, respectively 'to the East Indies, by the Phoe- 
nicians, the Jews, the merchant princes of Alexandria, Constan- 
tinople and of Venice. And if it be true that in an elder day 
cities and nations were enriched by the trade of the East Indies 
and Africa, how much greater must be the opportunity for the 
people of this great valley to enrich themselves by the trade of 
the West Indies, Central and South America. 

The European farmer is the rival of the American farmer in the 
grain markets of the world, and the American manufacturer is 
fast becoming the rival of the European manufacturer. 

The course of trade and the condition of the markets now open 
to the American manufacturer and farmer, demonstrate that we 
must earnestly seek for more profitable consumers, especially 
when, as in the case of Central and South America, they buy our 
productions with such of their own as we do not produce and are 
not competitors in any of our chosen fields of industry. 

The people of the Mississippi Valley have, nearer home, a far 
richer and broader field for human activity than Europe affords, 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VAT-LEY. 33 

which they have only to explore and cultivate, to make it an im- 
pregnable ally in trade and wealth, and not a rival. 

While it is true that the general tendency of man upon the 
planet has been to make the circuit of the globe within lines of 
latitude of equal temperature, thus instinctively following the 
sun in his course around the earth, it is also true that the sub- 
stantial wealth of all nations has been gathered, at least in past 
times, from the tropics. No people have became cosmopolitan 
and been vitalized by eclectic elements of civilization, who have 
not exchanged products with tropical climes, and between zones. 
Sameness is not the law of progress. Variety is the eternal means 
of improvement. 

There is no advantage derived by the exchange of the potatoes 
of Colorado for those of Ohio, nor the wines of Missouri for 
those of California. Those are the products of the same domes- 
tic industry, and grow along the isothermal path of the human 
race. 

It is by the exchange of the products of the tropics for those of 
the colder climates — the corn and wheat, the hardier fruits, and 
industrial arts of the North, for the cotton, the rice, the sugar, 
and the delicate fruits of the South, that our people are to be 
mostly benefitted in gathering the rewards of industry. 

If we are wise we will study these facts, and organize them into 
the greatest commercial policy of our age and people. 

They must be studied, understood and applied to the highest 
commercial interests of this country. 

Let us no longer ignore these great facts which God has or- 
dained, and to which the future millions of the two lands must 
conform. 

We have completed the circuit of the globe. Upon our land 
the chain of the world's empire is made complete. Columbus 
and Humboldt carried the conquest forward to the rising and 
setting of the sun. Amazed at this triumph, the Anglo-American 
mind instinctively turns to new fields of conquest, and seeks for 
dominion on sea and land. What else can it do but to achieve 
its greatest possibilities in commerce, peaceful conquest, and 



34 COMMEECIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

civilization? Nothing else remains to be done in this restless, 
grasping, conquering age. 

Man's instinctive destiny upon the planet has been to make the 
circuit of the globe within lines of equal temperature with that of 
his birth-place. This movement is in obedience to a higher law — 
a law over which neither kings nor emperors have any control, 
for it is the same law which operates in the planetary and sidereal 
heavens, to direct the sun within the plane of the zodiac and bring 
the seasons in turn. 

The westward movement of man along the path of empire cor- 
responds to the movement of the sun in the zodiac. It is the 
movement of discovery and conquest. The second movement of 
man is at right angles with the path of empire, and corresponds 
to the second solar movement, known as the precession of the 
equinoxes. In the one case, the varying of the sun to the north 
and south, in his celestial pathway, the ecliptic, produces the 
seasons, and gives sensation and intellectual life to the lands and 
waters, and supplies fruits and llowers for the happiness and re- 
finement of man. In the other case, the varying of the human 
race to the north and the south of the path of empire, pro- 
duces the great wealth of the world, and advances civilization 
in every land. Therefore the people of the great States of the 
Valley of the Mississippi have only to live in obedience to this 
great law of nature to fullil their mission in the affairs of the world. 

Man's civil, cosmopolitan and commercial destiny is to conquer 
and triumph over the lands and oceans of the varied zones and 
climates of the earth. The American people have established their 
line of conquests from ocean to ocean, and thus demonstrated their 
ability to accomplish their instinctive destiny ; they are now com- 
pelled to engage in their civil, cosmopolitan and commercial des- 
tiny. It is supremely important to the people of these great 
States of the valley that they hasten to realize that destiny, and 
earnestly set about its accomplishment. It commands the master 
might of mind. It involves the universal interests of races and 
nationalities. It involves national power and individual prosper- 
ity. Its fulfilment will be the grandest achievement of the race in 
the nineteenth century. It will be vitalized by the removal of the 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 35 

American capital to the Valley of the Mississippi, the discovery 
of the north-west passage around the continent, and the full de- 
monstration and realization of the Future Great City of the World . 
Let us hail this coming triumph, this possible achievement of our 
countrymen, with auspicious foreshadowings of a better time for 
the world's people. 

The application and development of these truths will at once 
reorganize the present system of the exchange of products on the 
continent, and lessen the importance of east and west railways in 
their relation to those running north and south. This brings us 
to another statement made by a citizen of St. Louis before the 
senatorial committee. The question was asked by Senator Conk- 
ling, why railroads were built on latitudinal instead of longitudinal 
lines? The witness answered, " because latitude has grain and 
longitude has not." Now it seems to me that this is a singular 
statement, and especially when made in the face of all the know- 
ledge in the world. 1 think that any scientific man will affirm 
that wheat and corn will grow on longitudinal as well as latitudi- 
nal lines, where the climate and soil are favorable. But if science 
won't do it, farmers will. 

But I simply repeat the statement made by the gentleman of 
St. Louis, and leave it for others to criticise. 

Our lathers landed upon the Atlantic seaboard of the continent, 
they there pitched their tents and made fixed habitations : They 
began to subdue the wilderness, to multiply and create wealth. 

The army of pioneers began to organize. Their only field of 
activity lay westward across a broad continent. They took up 
their march and moved forward toward the setting sun, constantly 
carving empire from the wilderness. Soon the arts and means 
of civilization followed their footsteps. The mechanic arts, edu- 
cation and improvement followed the pioneer, soon to be succeed- 
ed by the railway. And thus as the pioneers went forth from the 
East to the West, so did the railway go forth from the East to the 
West. The westward movement caused the railways to be built 
upon latitudinal lines to facilitate the going to and from the parent 
home. The wealth was there, and those who possessed it built 
railroads for their own interest. This was a pari of the work 



36 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

done by the American people during the first century of our na- 
tional life. There is now being inaugurated a new movement of 
civilization, for the people of the second century. This move- 
ment will build railroads and canals upon longitudinal lines, and 
establish harmony between the efforts of man and the purposes 
of nature. 

And railways running from either of the great commercial 
centers of the Valley — Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, 
New Orleans, and other kindred cities, to the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, will sink into far less relative importance than is now 
attached to them, in comparison with those running north and south 
and connecting the Lakes and the Gulf. In fact, one good railway, 
constructed to a good harbor on the Gulf of Mexico, will be of far 
greater value to any one of the cities of the Valley from which 
it may run, than any Pacific railway that can possibly be built. 
Besides, it must be evident that in less than ten years the trade of 
the West India Islands, Central and South America will be more 
valuable to the people of the Mississippi Valley than all the trade 
they will require with Europe and Asia. This may seem to some 
strange at first, but nevertheless, time will demonstrate it to be 
true. Understand me, I do not mean to say that the trade of the 
West India Islands, Central and South America will be greater 
than the combined trade of Europe and Asia, but I do mean to 
sav that the time is not distant when the people of the Mississippi 
Valley will do more business with the West Indies, Central and 
South America than the} r will with Europe and Asia combined. 

Let me explain. It may be assumed that by far the greater 
portion of our trade, at present, with Europe and Asia is confined 
to such fabrics and products as belong to climates that we possess, 
and that under these same climates are to be found, in North 
America, in greater abundance, those natural resources that 
Europe and Asia have in the same zones. Therefore, it is reas- 
onable to assume that the time is not distant when the people 
will produce, from the same raw material, such fabrics, wares ami 
implements as they may need in art and civilization, and hence 
will no longer be required to go abroad to Europe and Asia for 
such merchandise as can be produced at home. Then our people 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 37 

will only be required to go to zones and climates that they do not 
possess, in the prosecution of trade with mankind. This will 
necessarily lead them to the tropical and semi-tropical regions of 
the Western Hemisphere, more than to any other portion of the 
globe ; therefore another evidence of the commercial destiny of 
the Mississippi Valley, and the necessity of the surplus produce 
of the people of the valley following the flow of the waters to the 
gulf. Already our trade with the tropical and southern lands of 
the Western Hemisphere is rapidly growing, and to cultivate it 
requires favorable legislation and wise statesmanship at Wash- 
ington . 

No man can estimate our future, trade with the South American 
States when these lands shall be more truly cultivated, and the 
soils and climates yield to their full capacity the necessities for 
man, most of which will find their way to the markets of the 
Valley of the Mississippi. 

Beyond these continental considerations, if we consider what- 
ever of trade the people of this valley must carry on with Europe 
and Asia, we readily conclude that it must be done through the 
Gulf of Mexico. The construction of a ship canal across the 
Isthmus of Panama as well as a railway to Panama, via the City 
of Mexico, will inevitably compel nine-tenths of the foreign trade 
destined for the people of the valley to reach them through those 
routes. The Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean sea must be the 
commercial waters of America, infinitely transcending, in special 
importance, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In short, they form 
the Mediterranean of the New World. And in the future growth 
and organization of the world's commerce, may we not reasonably 
expect that thousands of ships, from the Atlantic and Pacific — 
from the combined fleets of the nations of the earth — will asso- 
ciate in rendezvous in that world's commercial place which these 
two waters are destined to be? Every consideration in our 
geography and resources, as well as the rapid tendency to a com- 
plete organization of the world's commerce, points to this one 
great fact. The Mediterranean of the New World is just as 
surely to supersede, in commercial importance, the Mediterra- 



38 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

nean of the Old World, as does the civilization of the New World 
supersede the civilization of the Old. 

Our Mediterranean will yet have its Suez canal. It has its own 
Rome, its Constantinople, its Genoa and its Venice, its Smyrna 
and its Palermo. In short, to the Mediterranean of the Old World 
belongs scarcely anything of nature and civilization that does not 
belong to the Mediterranean of the New, whether in oceans east 
and west, or whether in continents north and south : or whether 
in islands and cities, in climates and peoples. Brilliant and event- 
ful as is the long line of historic scenes which have been enacted 
upon the shores of the Mediterranean of the Old World, through 
thousands of years of man's history, growth and fall of nations, 
the commercial greatness, and the diffusion of the arts and sciences, 
— there seems to be reserved in the future, to be enacted upon the 
shores of the Mediterranean of the New World, still mightier 
deeds in commerce, in art, in Peace ! Why may we not antici- 
pate a superior and more advanced rehearsal of history? Even 
now it is being enacted, and must go on. 

" From the Gulf of Mexico all the great commercial markets 
of the world are down hill. A vessel bound from that Gulf to 
Europe places herself in the current of the gulf stream and drifts 
along with it at the rate, for part of the way, of eighty or one 
hundred miles per day. if her destination be Rio, or India, or 
California, her course is the same as far north as the island of 
Bermuda. 

"And when there shall be established a commercial thorough- 
fare across the Isthmus, the trade-winds of the Pacific will place 
China, India, New Holland, and all the islands of that ocean, 
down hill also from this sea of ours. , In that case, Europe must 
pass by our very doors, in the great highway of the markets both. 
of the East and the West Indies. 

"This beautiful Mesopotamian sea is in a position to occupy the 
summit level of navigation, and to become the great commercial 
receptacle of the world. Our rivers run into it, and float down 
with their currents the surplus articles of merchandise that are 
produced upon the banks. Arrived with them upon the bosom 
of this grand marine basin, there are the currents of the sea and 



COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 39 

the winds of heaven so arranged by Nature that they drift it and 
waft it down hill and down stream to the great market place of 
the world." 

The configuration of the two lands, their climate, soils, natural 
products, navigable waters and intermediate islands, afford the 
strongest possible evidence of their alliance to each other, both 
in nature and civilization. And as nature has tixed the bounda- 
ries of each, and adapted their uses one for the other, it highly 
becomes civilized men, inhabiting the two lands and their islands, 
to form civil and commercial relations with each other in unison 
with the purposes of nature. 

I am convinced that those climates and lands, with their incal- 
culable resources and noble navigable waters, must be the future 
Held of commercial enterprise for the Anglo-Saxon race — the 
American people — and that it is of the utmost importance to the 
people of the Mississippi Valley to look at once, with eagerness, 
to those countries, and to secure at the earliest moment intimate 
commercial relations with them. 

Every consideration invites the people of this valley to the 
tropics of this continent, and admonishes them that their com- 
mercial destiny must be with the flow of the waters of the rivers 
of the valley. 

Then it is that the future of this valley, which is destined to 
be the essential future of the civilization and the commercial 
activity of the Western hemisphere, depends upon the exchange 
of the products of the zones and climates of the Western conti- 
nents, and the highest development of the commercial relations 
between the people of North and South America and the inter- 
vening lands. The continent having been spanned by a railway, 
the people of the great Valley States, controlled by an instinct, 
whose highest achievement is destiny, are now vaguely but truly 
looking toward the tropics for their future held of commercial 
activity. Railroads and steamships will soon be put in line, and 
capital brought into, requisition, in the new and greater field of 
commerce. 

And from this great valley will go forth captains and generals 
with armies, to traverse again, in peaceful conquest, the battle- 






40 COMMERCIAL DESTINY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 

fields of Pizarro and Cortez, and fructify the lands of Aztecs and 
the Incas. 

The mission of our people is now being rapidly defined, and 
from their course there can be "neither variableness nor shadow 
of turning." Our commerce, when properly organized in its 
legitimate channels of usefulness, must follow the rivers, and our 
people who drink the waters of the Arkansas, the Illinois, the 
Ohio, the Missouri and the Mississippi, must be kindred in inter- 
est and prosperity with those who drink the waters of the 
Orinoco, the Kio de la Plata, the Parana and the Amazon. 

With the achievement of continental conquest will be established 
the most perfect commercial relationship between the zones and 
climates of the Western continents, North and South America. 

'•No ship that sails from either shore. 

While to and fro it plies. 
But weaves the thread of friendship o'er 

The Gulf that 'twixt us lies. 11 

Let no man be blind to the commercial destiny of this people. 
Let no man console himself with the hope of some vague specula- 
tion, in which this people will waste their time and their substance, 
by foolishly asking for profits and prosperity along the beaten 
track of conservatism and superstition, wandering east and west 
along parallel lines of equal temperature, with the rising and 
setting sun. No such absurdity awaits the Anglo-Saxon blood. 
Its mission is more than this. It is to combine in one universal 
relationship the zones and climates of extremes of heat and cold ; 
to o-ather the wonders and the wealth of torrid and frigid lands. 

Realizing that such a destiny awaits the people of this valle}', 
is it not the part of wisdom to so shape the schemes of ambition, 
of speculation, of industry, of improvement, and of commerce, 
as to carry out the purpose of the Divine, in the application of 
the economic uses of all those interests which are destined to 
contribute to their progress and the greatness of our nation ? 





















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